Acid Rain
(This is the first "short story" I've written, so it’s not going to be good, but nevertheless, I'll try....) World is vast, with no borders to cage those who are unwanted, or more importantly, wanted. By the law that is. As far as many can remember and those of the old have written, piracy has plagued all of the five seas of the world, much long before concept of a "Pirate King" was brought to the ears of the people. that would be hard to imagine. Many have come to be the victims of these transgressors, with them not paying their toll. Catered by the blood, and reaped from the money of those who weren’t able to stand against their sick desires. As it is, no matter how strong of a will person possesses, if the body cannot follow them, it’s going to be all for nothing. And for countless times over the centuries, that has been the case. Be it those of the today's world, or those long since forgotten. As many of these nefarious forces lurk above and spend their time gaining infamousy, much more evils creep and crawl underneath the society's bedrocks. These kinds of people may vary with their intentions and end goals, but all of them feel comforcy in their contempt at keeping silent, while simultaneously waiting apt moment. The golden hour, if you will. Even so, do not think for second that these people shrouded in shadows aren't building reputations and recruiting members to their plots. If you would view this dark world of deception and backstabbing, you would see finely woven spiderwebs, connected to each other from the webs edges. One of such groups went by the name of "Rainfall". They were what one could call an “underground office”. A relatively large "organized" group of anarchy loving lowlifes, including everyday street thugs, psychotic serial killers, size varying pirate crews, turncoat marine officers and other such devious parties. All people of same mind, who wouldn’t wish anything more than "rain" destruction whenever they pleased. Mind you, when it came to man- and firepower, Rainfall didn’t have what it takes to present "real" threat to marines, not comparing to the true heavy hitters, such as the Yonko and the Revolutionary Army. Although, no-one would blame them, since such heights would be seen as nigh-impossible climb. But on the other hand, they saw this fact from the very beginning and decided to specialize more in the hit and run tactics, which were designed to act like "corrosion". This included setting up series of fires all around the world, keeping near marines busy enough to cause some real damage elsewhere. No matter how big once organization is, its reach can't extend everywhere, that is, not effective enough. This was unfortunate truth for the World Government. “Now how could organized group composed of multitude of mishmash killers from different walks of life exist without falling into chaos?” you would ask. “Wouldn’t there be just lot of infighting or everyone would be doing their own thing without following anyone’s orders?” Indeed, in any normal circumstances, this would be the very case. But you see, majority of the Rainfalls "minor members" did not interact often with their colleagues, so to avoid aforementioned situation from occurring. The "Core members" were the ones calling the shots via sending encrypted messages to the "minor members". ______ "Luckily" for the marines, world holds countless people ready to fight against groups like Rainfall. One of these being the good old bounty hunters, since nothing motivates people to do anything like sack fill to the brim with berries. On the other hand, many of the regular dime a dozen bounty hunters weren't aware of the underground dealers, especially of the Rainfall-types, whose main objective was to stay unknown. Finding info about these filthy ones would require either good connections, pure happenstance or luck. One such "lucky" group did exist, although many wouldn't consider their knowledge of the Rainfall "luck" in any kind of way. This was the bounty hunting group called "Ramada", a relatively small group composed mainly out of Rainfalls victims. In fact, Ramada's founder was part of the first islands Rainfall decide to use as distraction. During this earlier period, Rainfall hadn't manage to make its "minor members" stay entirely silent, resulting in groups exposure to the government. To counter act this, Rainfall staged arrests to make it seem like all Rainfall members were captured, which resulted in group going underground for over half a decade, before going back to their original plans. Naturally, the pirate crews that saw it fitting to blab about the "Secret Organization Rainfall" were in the first once to be captured. They weren't missed by anyone. During the years that Rainfall was in hiding, Ramada's founder, Nemo, joined in the marine ranks, wanting to stop similar events to what had fallen upon his home island from ever happening. Then, when he started to get in reports that seemed to be repeats of similar incidents, Nemo decided to leave the marines in pursuit of Rainfall, as they wouldn't let him go after the group that they believed to be captured years prior. As so, Nemo got the idea to try and build his own organized force that would be able to take down Rainfall. He deiced to name this group "Ramada", symbolizing how they would be stopping the "falling rain". It took him couple of years of bounty hunting to bring this concept to reality. Afterwards, Nemo went to worldwide search for like-minded members to his new-found group. Sad to say, this was far more easier task, since Rainfall had had years of time to rain free. ______ In following years Ramada managed to catch attention of the world with its exploits as "big" bounty hunter organization. Although, you could say that every up-and coming group catches people’s attention, while fading in the background little afterwards. Ramada was known and acknowledged by people, but in general it wasn't considered that big of a thing by the law-enforcement, duo to the group’s overall attitude. Now, don't think for second that Ramada only went after the Rainfall. Granted, their long-term goal was set in the Rainfalls destruction, they still worked like any other bounty hunters, going after any pirate or bandit that they heard or who just happened to cross their path. Somewhere just more gung-ho for going for the Rainfall. Every relatively sized group has its own fanatics and zealots. One could say that Ramada was “too big for its britches”, as they saw themselves in a way, more important than the Navy’s themselves, which of course had numerous times left the two sides in butting heads. Even so, beyond their arrogance, Ramada was capable organization, weeding out the small-time pirate groups before they had the time to grow more powerful, even going after more household names. They were known for their mind set of never relenting in their pursuits of law breakers. But, like any good intention, this group was often under attack of those who wanted to ruin them. This went to so far that the main circle needed to come up something to give everyone a peace during off hours. And they did. In order to keep safe from numerous outlaws who wanted rain revenge upon them or just make name of themselves, Ramada hide its headquarters from the public eye. Only things left behind was rumors and hearsay speculating that the building housing these headhunters was under the ocean waters. Afterwards, Ramada members would simply appear out of the blue and disappear to what looked like nothing. Few tried to find the location, and were never heard again. Little while after people took notice of this and mostly stopped. People tend to be rather pig headed when they want something. Ramada knew this well. ______ In the base of the bounty hunting pack called Ramada, a lone woman was walking through the empty looking halls. most of the other member were either on a mission, doing some research on the upcoming missions or simply hanging out. She herself just wanted to stretch her legs, after having been sitting on monitor duty for the past three hours. She had light blue hair tied to long side tail, pale complexion and blue eyes. Her clothing consisted of black party dress, long black glove that extended to her upper arm, pair of black stockings, black high heels and sword belt tied around her waist. Sword in the sheath was four bladed katana. Her name was Seleen Vogel Seelen was senior member of the Ramada, having been part of the first dozen or so joining members. This didn't mean that she was part of the leader-board, only ranking length of her membership. There were many whom had joined far later than her and were even further away in strength wise, as well as many more who couldn't hold a candle to her in ring. It was fascinating to her, as she noticed not being able to close the gap between some of her peers. Even those who started far behind her soon reached and surpassed with break neck speeds, making her trip in the cloud of sand they left behind. Seleen wasn't sure if this was because other possessed more latent talent than she herself, or because she wasn't utilizing right kind of training regiment. It seemed that the variables were too great for her. But she never complained, as this would be undermining her companion’s accomplishments. What sort of friend would she be if she constantly was mad at her friends for them doing something right? She was abruptly knocked out of her thoughts by sudden force hitting her. It was one of her aforementioned comrades who had bumped into her. She had green shoulder length hair and glass left eye. Her clothing was made up of light brown vest, black sleeveless shirt, elbow length black finger-less gloves and baggy gray pants with no shoes or socks. She also had, for reasons that went over Seleens head, mouth covering gas mask and red lens glasses on top of her head. Her name was Psychobad. Yes, her family wasn't all that nice towards her. She seemed bit disheveled. With uncomfortably quiet cracking, Psychobad slowly turned her head around with motion similar to an owl, looking Seleen in the eyes with her own dead fish-like eyes (her glass eye helped to highlight this effect even further). Like any other person would do in such situation, Seleen felt unease with her team-mate, but this kind of feeling wasn’t uncommon thing when you were in Psychobads company. “You might not be able to tell, but I’m smiling under this mask”, she said, pointing at gas mask covering her mouth. Dry humor enhanced the unsettling feeling. Seleen felt like Psychobad always looked like she was just about ready to tell you that your grandmother had died, or your lover was in a coma. But what usually followed was something relatively mundane or occasional sincere complement. It was strange experience talking with Psychobad: she tended to have, what one could call a "inappropriate expression" on her face, ranging from bored to extremely series, where you would fear her eyes could bulge out of their sockets. This was worse when she got her glass eye, as that was now actually possible. This was strengthened with her unnerving tendency to be silent for moment before telling what’s in her mind, while she was part of a conversation. Seleen wasn’t completely sure if she did this on purpose or if she just found it amusing to creep out others around her. Most of her time as member of the Ramada, Seleen had spent long time Psychobad, as they both where relatively the same age and Psychobad was excellent weapon user and had thought Seleen few different training styles. Not to say that others didn’t talk to her, all in the Ramada knew each other, but Psychobads demeanor and appearance didn’t present her as social person. She did get along with people, she just wasn’t the first person they would choose as their conversational partner. Not that Psychobad ever expressed desire to be center of an attention in the first place. She mostly just hovered around talking people and more often than not answered to questions, rather than making them herself. “Where were you going Psychobad?” Seleen asked. Psychobad kept looking at her for couple of awkward moments. "Nothing new there", Seleen thought to herself. “Seleen, you remember the team “North Wind”?” Psychobad answered, putting her hands on Seleens shoulders and widening her eyes. Whenever or not it was just optical illusion, but Seleen thought she saw her friends glass eye wobble in the socket, ready to drop to the floor. She returned to reality from those rather gristly thought patters as Psychobad continued on. “Molpak, Maquilla, Hormiro, Bohóc and Biene Froissé?” “Of course, we were often sparring partners,” Seleen said, “Maquilla even helped Ranchy when he was putting me back together after, you know, the attack on one of the Rainfalls factions.” Psychobad took her hands of Seleen and retreated few steps away. Seleen couldn't help to think straw caused slurping sound when her friends eye retreated back to her head, along with her real one. Her green haired compatriot had aura of sadness to her, or that's what Seleen felt like she had, as her eyes didn't betray anything beyond flat emotionless. Although it might had been her body, as she slumped down. Mind you, they did that after couple moments passed. "Jeez, even her body lags behind", Seleen thought again. “Hmm, yeah, there was that debacle. Can’t really say I remember that, since back then, I hadn't been part of the group for long. And I was stuck at doing desk duty's” Psychobad mumbled out loud. Now Seleen felt bad for making Psychobad fell bad. It really is a vicious cycle. "I need to get back on the subject, before this goes further in the wrong territory", Seleen reasoned to herself. “Oh, right. Slipped my mind. With all the people joining, it’s sometime rather hard to remember who joined and when.” She said apologetically, while thinking how she screwed up by continuing on the same path, instead of asking reason to her friend’s question regarding the North Wind. Psychobad raised her head and looked into Seleens eye. “True enough. But back in the subject at hand. Do you remember what happened to the “North Wind”?” She seemed to regain her confidence on the subject, as she straightened her back and took more of stronger stand. “Yes, they were going after few of the new small-time pirates.” Seleen said, “There was even some rumors floating around, saying that they were planning to form an alliance, even go recruit more like-minded crews to take part in it.” Psychobad begin to point at Seleen with her left hand, slowly. Yet again, moment passed. “Correct, naturally we wouldn’t let that kind of thing slide, so we sent our own operative to put an end to their ambitions.", Psychobad finally said. " North Wind left and never came back." Seleen sight heavily "Yes, I myself went looking for them. Pirates were captured and send to jail, but then it was like the earth had swallowed them. I looked and interrogated people left and right, looked even smallest of clues and prints. Didn't hear even peep nor find strand of hair." Psychobad shot side glance to Seleen. It might have been bit more effective if she had done it with her real eye. Even so, it was bit haunting. "You know that they most likely were captured by the Rainfall, yes?", she said. Before Seleen could answer, Psychobad put her palm up. "No need to say anything, I can figure out your answer”. Seleen was bit thrown back for how fast Psychobad answered. "This might be more series if she isn't going to continue doing her weird routine", she thought. As he was thinking this, Psychobad walked close to her face, whispering to her ear. "Seleen, what I'm about to say needs to be kept secret, even from the Nemo.", she stopped to look around for eavesdroppers, "If what I know is right, this could decide the fate of the Ramada". Psychobad again searched the halls for the extra ears, then beginning to sneak to one of the empty rooms. "Quickly, follow me.", she whispered, egging her on to enter in the room. Seleen was perplexed at her behavior, as she had never seen her do anything of this sort, not even her most series moment in the field. As anyone in her situation, she decided to follow her friend, wanting to unravel whatever had made Psychobad so tangled. ______ Room was one of their regular storage rooms, holding dozens of different sized crates on dozens of shelves. It seemed like Psychobad had intended this to be the meeting spot from the very beginning, as there were some papers on top of a crate, that had seemingly been removed from shelf, if the dustless spot was telling the truth. Psychobad stepped to the crate and picked up the papers, reading through them. She seemingly hadn't set them up in order. "And here I though she put some thinking behind this" Seleen though. After few awkward moments of sorting through her stack of papers, Psychobad stopped, raised her face from the papers and looked at Seleen. "You see, couple of weeks ago, I caught wind of one of the Rainfalls future targets and decided to intercept the group before they came to the islands shores.", yet again, she raised her hand up to silence Seleen "I know it was stupid thing to do, but I knew the perps. They were not all that strong of a crew." She coughs to her arm, quit possibly getting some spit on to her papers (Seleen wasn't sure how she accomplished this with her mouth covering gas mask still on) and continued. "Anyway, I manage to get on board of their ship during the night time, after staking it for two days. I thought it was important to see if there were anything useful information on the Rainfall and started to scout the ships insides.” Out of nervousness, she begins to pace around the crate, rolling the stack of papers into a tube.” What I found was disturbing. One of their crew members was carrying spear similar to Molpak." This information hit Seleen like cannonball. Out of blue and little to no visual warning. She couldn't even begin to prose's how one of her colleagues most important possession could end up in the hands of some small tome pirate crew. "At first, I thought it was just a coincidence, but then I stumbled upon to another blast from the past" she opened the crate and brought up pair of pink flintlocks, with rifle length gunpoint's "Biennes customized pistols." Psychobad lowered the pistols on top of one of the shelved crates. After brushing of the top layer of dust off it, of course. "Naturally, when I found these, I had to dig further, even with the looming threat of being found out. I know it was risky and this information would be buried if everything went to south." "I know you couldn't just leave it at that. One can never know when the trail gets cold." Seleen answered sadly, thinking back to her deceased comrades. Yet again, Psychobad decided to bring her down from these thoughts. "I found some of these papers on the board" she said, holding the slightly grumbled and slimy stack to Seleen "You should check them out. Not all of them were from there, but I’ve managed to dig them up during these past weeks." Seleen wasn't sure what to expect. What would be so bad that her friend had to keep it secret from everyone else? "come rain or shine, I'll see this trough" she thought and started to read. In the few minutes, she had to stop to reread, believing that she had misunderstood the text. Papers were filled with what Seleen believed to were dates, time and locations. They might have looked like nothing to someone else, but she guessed what they meant. They were detailed descriptions on Ramada's comes and going in the outside world. "Is this enough time to continue on?" Psychobad asked. "You probably can think of reason why Rainfall could have this much information of us." Seleen kept looking at the papers for bit longer, before turning her head around, staring directly into Psychobads eyes. She really didn't want to acknowledge it, but trying to get past the thought was impossible, she felt. So, she decided to agree with Psychobads suggested idea. Be it as bad as it was. "We have a traitor amongst us." Psychobad nodded. ______ When someone decides to go in war against big faction, it's always important to keep record of occurring things and actions. Ramada's archives were its own library (since when does not "social group" have its own library? People get antsy when they don't have anything to do for extended periods of time, and frequent stakeouts were part of business). Seleen and Psychobad, after brief discussion on the matter, decide to venture in these dusty halls, in search of truth. Both agreed on the fact that the first step of uncovering this conspiracy was to look for clues in their own camp. What better place than one that hold the most knowledge? Whole idea had come from Seleen herself, as she thought that there could be some kind of link between Ramada's and Rainfalls decades old interactions. Something that no one saw or paid enough attention to. Something hidden in plain sight, under years of paperwork. Big enough pile of leaves can hide a corpse. When the duo finally had arrived at the double-doors leading in the archives, both had more than enough time to think how to proceed with this delicate matter. Multitasking is important. Hard wooden doors creaked open. Room behind them was vast, like the ocean it resided in. Full of shelves upon shelves, fill to the brim with folders and binders and such. It was its own sea. Sea of paper. Smell of salt and pepper. Nemo told them to stop dining in the archives. Few didn't learn. In order to get the maximum amount accomplished in day, two decided to split up and look for information on their own. Two made the gathering spot to be the door, since the archive really didn't have any other landmarks. Seleen decided to go to the very edge of the archive, wanting to search through the oldest of text. She believed it to be good to look for first trick this traitor in their crew had made. Psychobad didn't object, as she wanted to look through the North Winds case, since she had the most current info. Also, she didn't trust her own hands to handle the old documents. Seleen remembered too how her friend wasn't the most delicate. Case and point, she almost toppled one of the smaller shelves by leaning on it. They would look around for three hours before regrouping in front of the door again. ______ During the passing of the hours, Seleen could every now and then hear thumps coming from where she thought most likely Psychobad was. Obviously, she had knocked over more shelves. Seleen hoped that she wouldn't have to go and clean up after her. "Although" Seleen though to herself "She might be doing it out of frustration". At least, she herself didn't have any luck in her search. Of course, it would be nothing but preposterous to expect results when the truth hadn't been discovered until now. But as it stood, she felt like this mountain couldn't be climbed. This also lit small flame in Seleen, as if there was one thing she could get behind was, it would be trying to fight unforgiving current until she got her way. When the clock finally hit to signify third hours passing, Seleen had not made any headway. She decided to not let this get to her and believed her friend would be more successful, since she knew far more than Seleen. On her walk to the double-doors, Seleen took notice of piles of folders on the floor. "Psychobad must have gone and left them." Seleen though, putting her hand on her head in slight irritation "Does she really enjoys giving me more things to do?" What she saw next, put a stop to her thoughts. More cruel than before. ______ There was pile of empty shelves on top of each other, blocking the doors. On top of the pile sat Psychobad. She was waving at her. Only thing that could be heard for this silent moment was rough breathing produced by Psychobad. “Psychobad, what are you doing?” Seleen asked. Psychobad walked up to Seleen and pat her on the head. Even though her mouth is not visible under the mask, it’s clear she is smiling. “Your big girl Seleen” She said, “I’m quite sure you’ll figure it out.” She put her hand behind her head and did something that Seleen first didn't believe to be real. She removed her mask. As that leather contraption fell to the floor with thunk, Seleen drilled her eyes in her friends now visible face: She was not anything unusual in her face. It was normal. Too normal, Seleen felt. That changed when Psychobads lips parted and her mouth contorted in wide smile, which looked like it devoured her face. Seleen knew immediately, as this happened, what was going on in front of her: She had been plaid a fool. While Seleen was processing this, Psychobad spun a knife in her hand, passing it time to time from one hand to another and even nearly juggling it over her head. Then she starts to sing off key “song”, slowly moving to left, circling around Seleen: “Life is so long that it ends with a coup, but that isn’t new to me or to you. One may try to struggle, try it hard as they might but all of it end in a puddle when I extinguish their light. Red sea, red raider, my actions won't waver Red steps, red trail, as your plans I derail Easy beyond belief, my stay was so brief, I put you through grief, it was just dry heave, FOR ME!!! Red sea, red raider, my actions won't waver Red steps, red trail, as your plans I derail Now put that in past, It was fun as it last we drank through bright flask but now I must ask: Please leave your station!!!!!” Song ended as abruptly as the singer had started it, although Seleen did notice ending being more clunky in its execution. Not that the so-called song wasn’t unneed of proper execution at the end of it all. Any kind would have sufficed. Clearly Psychobad was better actor than singer. “It’s just something I cooked up. Sure, it’s nowhere near finished, but that’s what you get with when you’re put on the spot.” Psychobad said, shaking her head. Now, Seleen finally had her voice back. "Why did you do this" she said, "Why would you betray us? I thought we were comrades..." Psychobad snickered. “When I was 6, I thought I was pink elephant. Nothing but imaginary ballet.” She said between breaths. Psychobad set her eyesight to somewhere else, what Seleen could only guess to be act of taunting her. “Also, some could say, "it’s not betrayal if one of the associates isn’t dead". “She replied, continuing with her knife play, finally pointing it at Seleen “Makes it much clearer to everyone.” Seleen arm shoot to her sword, gripping its hilt. “Not going to run away and give me chance to try and hunt you?” Psychobad questioned to her now ex-friend. “You would try and stab me in the back” Seleen shot back at Psychobad. “What? I wouldn’t do such thing” she said, looked upward again, with her closed mouths corners stretching into smirk. “You could try to hide it…” Seleen muttered, getting angrier by minute. “No, no, honestly, I wouldn’t have stabbed you in the back” Psychobad said. “what I would have done was run after you, catch up to you and then stab you in the stomach.” Seleen slowly pulled her sword out of its scabbard, while listening Psychobad speech “Kozui is going to put end of this nonsense”. She could hardly believe how fast this turn of events had occurred and proceeded. The plate it rested seemed deeper than she liked. “My name was “Psychobad”; you didn’t think that it was fake name, that I was using an alias? What sort of parents would name their child like that? My real name is Oryx Cafard” Oryx laughed at Seleen, mischievously pointing at her “I don’t even need this mask." she kicks the mask away from her "Real reason why I wore it was because sometimes I can have tough time not smiling.” Oryx demonstrated this claim. Seleen had had enough. She took a stance and rocketed towards her old comrade, swinging her sword in huge arc. But Oryx was faster. She stabbed Seleen in the arm and seemingly cuts it off, with the sword still staying in the hand. To offer some kind of relief for Seleens, arm that she lost wasn’t real one. ______ Seleen was always after self-improvement. Always training her swordsmanship, always fighting with other members. This had its own risks as she would go after the goal without thinking about her own safety. One time she managed to get so badly injured during a mission that many parts of her body had to be removed. Luckily for her, Ramada's own doctors were able to make her replacements out of machines. They weren't anything fancy or delicate, neither lightweight and comfortable, but they allowed her to wield the sword again. It took her several months to get through adjusting to the new mechanical body parts, which cut her fighting prowess down immensely. This was the much more worse blow to her. Also, the sad thing with iron body is that when it comes against someone who can slice iron as easily as making fruit salad, novelty loses its luster fast. And that realization works its way through you brain with speed of whiplash. Burning and momentary, but makes you scream non-the less. ______ “Lucky you, I got the mechanical one” Oryx said, not wanting to show that she accidentally cut of wrong arm, since of course all of the Ramada members would know that Seleen was a cyborg. Such of thing wouldn’t be kept secret from your team-mates, who you fight side by side. Oryx and Seleen shared a look at the iron arm. Both went through the same basic thought process: get to the arm first, it will decide the ending of this fight. Although Oryx would prefer to play-fight longer and was actually starting to get little enjoyment out of it, she knew that her boss wouldn’t be happy if she was caught during one of her usual “play sessions”. She was mad not a fool, no one, not even gods above, made her bosses plans go AWOL (no one happy with their present existence at least). Without skipping a beat, both made dash towards the arm, with Seleen in the clear lead. Oryx tried to stop her by stabbing her in the leg, only ending up missing her, swinging her arm against the thin air. Naturally, she swung her arm back, deciding to use her arms current position to throw her knife at her unaware opponent. Unfortunately, this came too little too late for be any good use, as Seleen already had gotten her hands, well hand on the sword and used it to block the upcoming metallic mosquito, now leaving Oryx without weapon. She didn’t care for that much as during Seleens moment of perseverance, Oryx had gotten hold of something not necessarily practical, but still better than invisible and intangible blade she had had. This was the arm that Seleen had left on the floor after plucking her sword out of its death grip. Oryx considered it to be good start, as she was at least armed. Also, she had longer arm reach now. It’s always good to keep your enemies in arm’s length after all, she thought. She was on the roll with the puns. She could even pat herself in the back. “Kuhahhaha” Oryx laughed to herself. “What’s so amusing?” Seleen asked, still on guard. “Amusing thing here is that how common this has come to me” Oryx said nonchalantly, beginning to circle around her future victim,” there’s always one person who tries to play the hero, always charging in, trying to make difference. How come all of those people think that despite their friends and comrades dying easily while going against me and Henbo-chan here" she points her knife for an emphasis, "that they would fare better?” Seleen grits her teeth. “As long as I live, I won’t let you get any more information to Rainfall.” Oryx rolls her eyes bored. “More dancing with our thoughts, it seems.” She says, trying to sneakily grab the knife of the floor, to no avail,” One reason why I wouldn’t be able to mingle with you “heroes” for long. You time and time again proof how much crazier than me you are.” Seleen goes to another lunge, but Oryx pushes her mask under her feet, tripping Seleen. "You think that we paid such an attention to you because you could pose a threat to us?" Oryx asked, walking over to her fallen "friend”, "You haven't even interacted or heard of most of our higher operatives." She kicks away Seleens sword. It right slides under one of the shelves, going out of sight. "No, the real reason behind our hunt was that we saw you as perfect targets: collection of naive fools believing in "justice" long since forgotten by the those who once forced it." she hits Seleen in the head with her severed arm. "It’s amusing to drip and drop daydreamers." "They never see it coming and can only blame themselves." Another smack. "Do you know of Buster Call?" smack. "Of Cipher Pol?" smack. "Or do you know of the existence of the legalized slavery?" now a slap. Oryx throws away the arm and pick Seleen up from her hair. she puts her face in front of the one-armed girl. "All enforced by the very people who claim to follow the path of justice. We thought about those things and asked, "why is only government allowed to do these kinds of things? Why can’t humble person from modest upbringing indulge in little island eradication?" She punches Seleen in the stomach, letting her fall on the floor. "Or something fun like framing?" she walks away and picks up the knife, "I’ve always seen myself as framer, took some classes in painting to boot." Seleen tries to rise up but before though crosses her mind, Oryx is back on top of her body. Its seems difficult to think when your heads mashed potato. "Have you ever tried to imagine how it feels like to hit someone and they don't fight back?" Oryx askes, bringing the knife up, "When they are conditioned to keep cool and cry in the inside while saying sorry for not being able to stand up and take the punishment? The "well deserved" punishment." Knife comes down. ______ Oryx stood still for a moment, watching Seleens lifeless body like it wasn’t there before, or at least like she hadn’t noticed if being there before. Nothing happened. As the moment stretched, so did the newly forming scowl extend in Oryxes face. Why would such a thing bother person like her, someone who before gleefully severed now dead woman’s arm and presented it as a joke. Granted not very good joke, but comedy is subjective. Few minutes passed by as she finally heaved heavy sigh, walked to Seleens severed arm, picks it up and puts it over her shoulder, not so differently as carrying sack full of laundry. She then begins to walk towards her “expired friend”, bending into squatting position right next to her, scanning the surroundings with her bored eyes. This stops in sudden halt as her eyes gaze finally nails to the sword of her former compatriot. Heirloom, she had called it. In the end it was a silly looking thing, with its four blades. She could have believed if someone told her that it was a decorative sword, just ornament people put on top of shelves. Oryx tried to remember its name, but she simply couldn’t put her finger around it. Funny, since Seleen tend to always say its name when she drew it out of scabbard, Oryx thought. Even as reminiscing, Oryx didn’t treat this as time to be completely distracted, as she made sure of that her old pals blood won’t be getting on her shoes. Once again, she heaves heavy sigh, shaking her head. “Happy Ramada?" she finally said, "She died in order to protect you, without realizing that heroic sacrifices are useless when performed in closed doors.” “They should teach these people how to make a good self-sacrifice.” Oryx started to muse, looking at her fallen former compatriot, “Now there’s no one to pass the message of my so called “betrayal”, no one to mourn your passing, giving me golden opportunity to sneak behind them and cut that poor crying souls head off." She walked around the shelves and picked the sword up. "There is already too much crying in this world anyway." Oryx sight, "really, sacrificing now days is done so half-heartedly, with nobody appreciating good set ups.” For the last time, Oryx went to the Seleens body and placed the two items on top of it. “Well, I guess I have to improvise this thing." she said, starting to re-arrange the fallen shelves back up, clearing out the doorway, "She didn’t leave much to work with, but it can’t be helped when people don’t take other’s feelings in to a count. Bunch of ungrateful lurkers, glad their dead.” She then grumbled. “How is one supposed to lurk in the shadows when there’s already someone else there…” It took longer than she liked, but after over half an hour, Oryx finally had managed to put the archives back to their original state. Besides the Seleens body. For whatever reason, Oryx felt unhappy with her ex-friend’s position. “Now, how should I present this? Put her against wall, lay her on the floor? If so, should she lay on her back or stomach? or maybe put her lean on wall upside down…” At this point, she had started to pace around,” That might be too esoteric and goes over people’s heads. There’s nothing worse than people not getting the message of the things...” New idea surfaced in her mind. "Maybe I should wait here for the next member to come by. They could put up better fight than Seleen. What did she think of this anyway? That she could win against me even though we knew the results from privies spars. idealists and patriots die first when they chase after doves." Unfortunately for her, that couldn't go beyond its planning stage. "But it could stretch things too far, people would flock here like self-pointed pray-birds they think they are." "Tempting, but boss said something about hatting it when people dawdle and don't do their jobs." After this thought, Oryx decided that her bosses’ "happiness" was bit more important than hers. She slipped back in her Psychobad character (all the good killers have spare clothes, if change is necessary), opened the double-doors and walked outside, closing them behind her. For whatever reason, one door didn't close. Category:Short Story Contest 2017 - 2018 Category:Stories Category:Carabe197